Editorial May 6, 1922 Issue

"Thy neighbour as thyself"

Albert F. Gilmore

Throughout the centuries many Christians have been prone to classify the precepts of Christ Jesus as practical and unpractical. Those teachings which have seemed possible of application to the affairs of life have been declared practical and adopted into the code of Christian ethics. Others of his teachings, however, have been declared to be impossible of practical use, and, in consequence, have been cast aside as the words of a dreamer, having no utility in satisfying human wants. In the latter class has been generally included that fundamental command of the Master, repeated from the Levitical law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," so important in his eyes that he declared it to be one of the two great commands upon which, he asserted, "hang all the law and the prophets."

In the book of Leviticus the admonition to love thy neighbor as thyself appears as one of the laws received by Moses direct from God; and Paul restated it, emphasizing its importance. Yet, notwithstanding the prominence given it by Moses, Paul, and Christ Jesus himself, in general mankind has been prone to discard it as inapplicable in human experience,—in fact, as expressing an injunction impossible of accomplishment. Nevertheless, through the inspired revelation of Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Scientists learn how this seeming impossibility may be made a living issue. They learn the necessity of loving one's neighbor in order to gain the understanding of man which enables one to demonstrate spiritual being as a present possibility; and that to love one's neighbor is the demand of true Christianity which, to insure progress Spiritward, all must fulfill. Of the necessity of making this demonstration, Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 183): "In the great forever, the verities of being exist, and must be acknowledged and demonstrated. Man must love his neighbor as himself, and the power of Truth must be seen and felt in health, happiness, and holiness: then it will be found that Mind is All-in-all, and there is no matter to cope with."

The necessity of obeying this urgent command of the Master is, indeed, the father of the thought that it may be accomplished; and are we not assured that with God all things are possible? What, then, one may ask, is the solution? Am I expected to love a neighbor who is altogether unlovely? Why, it is an impossibility! And, from the viewpoint of such a contender, his conclusions are sound; for by no means can one love a person who appears to possess no lovable traits, but who, on the contrary, perhaps, expresses much that is hateful, mean, despicable, and false. To love such, surely, is a task quite impossible of accomplishment. But the student of Christian metaphysics, utilizing the understanding of divine Principle, and spiritual law, finds that the true neighbor, the image and likeness of God, the good, the perfect, and the true, was never possessed of unlovely traits. What! one exclaims; my neighbor, who manifests so many selfish and disagreeable qualities, the image of God? Impossible! And again one is quite compelled to agree with the contender. But, continuing the line of reasoning upon which he has set out, God made all that was made, we read in the Bible; and upon examination He found it "very good." Where, then, in this perfect creation, do we place the disagreeable person I have found my neighbor to be? Again by resorting to our Leader's teaching the Biblical passage is made clear. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 215), Mrs. Eddy pertinently says: "With its divine proof, Science reverses the evidence of material sense. Every quality and condition of mortality is lost, swallowed up in immortality. Mortal man is the antipode of immortal man in origin, in existence, and in his relation to God."

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